SWORD - Sex Work Organizer Resource Directory

According to leading researchers on global sex markets, there are an estimated 1 million people trading sexual services for money in the US, which is nearly 30% more than the estimated number of female cashiers in the US (Dr. Manisha Shah, 6:41). This doesn't take into account that there are 2.1 million content creators on OnlyFans, a single platform known for the sale of erotic and sexual content. All of these people qualify as sex workers, and are thus vulnerable to discrimination, job loss, bank account closure, loss of child custody, travel restrictions, gender based violence, and (if they are providing in person services) arrest. Additionally, sex workers have been increasingly pushed off the Internet via sweeping censorship bills SESTA and FOSTA, which aim to end sex trafficking but result in displacing sex workers and their clients to offline locations, thus increasing vulnerabilities to harm and exploitation. SESTA and FOSTA also impacted the ability for sex workers to share organizing and safety information, which could be construed as “promoting trafficking” under the new laws. FOSTA is presently being challenged in court as a violation to the constitution by Woodhull Freedom Foundation, which is New Moon Network’s fiscal sponsor. Judges overseeing the hearing remarked that FOSTA could hypothetically criminalize speech relating to the status of laws relating to sex work. To be clear, FOSTA could make it illegal to even discuss changing laws about sex work. We as sex workers know this possibility is altogether too likely.

At the same time that FOSTA is debated in court, working conditions have gotten increasingly hostile for sex workers. Policies and law enforcement efforts that seek to eradicate sex trafficking by eradicating the sex trade entirely have gained popularity since the early 2000’s. In response, sex workers have mobilized to advocate for better policies. New Moon Network can count 180+ visible sex worker led groups active in the USA, up from <30 in 2015. Unfortunately, censorship, fear of discrimination, institutional barriers, and internal conflict prevent the sex worker movement from increasing momentum. Additionally, sex workers have numerous lived realities and access needs relating to housing status, primary language, technological ability, and advocacy experience level. The movement is in need of an accessible, centralized place to share information, history, and tools that are collaboratively constructed to meet varying community needs.

New Moon Network has been in consultation with numerous community leaders in the sex worker rights movement to understand what type of tool(s) would be broadly useful for the movement. Everyone agrees that a lightweight website or app crafted with mobile phones, language justice and disability accessibility at the forefront would be an ideal place to host information, historical resources, and opportunities for live engagement amongst sex worker advocates. We will respond to increasing censorship by exploring offshores hosting options, guided by our colleagues and allies in Europe and Australia. By prioritizing community needs and building this tool in collaboration with key community leaders, SWORD (Sex Work Organizer Resource Directory) stands a chance to expand and strengthen advocacy networks for some of the most marginalized advocates in society. The sharing of collective knowledge and a database of resources will accelerate learning, strengthen connections, and better enable the movement to assess strategy. Serving as a hub for information, the platform will centralize opportunities to connect to existing community listservs, discord channels, and live gatherings that are challenging for isolated and rural advocates to find. Dialogue will expand beyond borders and help unite efforts amongst people facing similar challenges in various countries. An indirect benefit to this communications platform will be enhanced knowledge of mutual aid and safety practices.

The Sex Work Organizer Resource Directory strives to serve people impacted by the criminalization, censorship, and societal oppression of people who trade sexual services for money or other items of value (sex workers). Sex workers (both legal and criminalized) are typically working-class people who frequently have numerous jobs, but who face discrimination for their proximity to or engagement in prostitution, regardless of whether they are breaking the law or not. Sex workers are frequently breadwinners and primary caregivers to minor children, aging adults, or extended community networks, and are impacted severely by censorship laws aimed at combating sex trafficking. Sex workers are overwhelmingly women and LGBTQIA+ individuals, with trans women disproportionately represented due to discrimination barriers in mainstream work environments. People of color engaged in the sex trades face greater risks of police harassment and arrest, and are particularly susceptible to police raids if they are migrants to the US. People living with disabilities are also disproportionately represented in the sex trades, as it provides a flexible schedule, and can be done from home on the context of phone based or online sex work. Sex workers were first movers on adoption of the Internet as a business tool, which increased safety and independence for providers of in person services. Unfortunately, concerns about sex trafficking have resulted in policies targeting the Internet and other tools that sex workers use to advocate and keep their communities safe, resulting in the fragmentation of online sex working communities and increased instability for sex workers. SWORD would help rebuild sex worker resiliency on the web through the centralization of information and tools that sex workers and their allies can use to promote better sex trade policies. This website/app will serve as a starting point for new advocates who can access a database of existing materials ranging from policy change and organizing 101 to nuanced debriefs on historical sex worker efforts, wins, and losses. The platform will be a great service to allies recognizing the importance of sex workers rights, allowing them to gain access to existing one-pages and articles on intersectional information relating to sex work and police reform, surveillance, migration, gender-based violence, and more. The platform would center the needs of disabled and non-English speaking sex workers through the prioritization of language translation widget integration and online accessibility web development practices. Most importantly, SWORD would include a calendar of upcoming and ongoing dialogues occurring through listservs, social media channels, and in person, which will increase active participation amongst sex workers who are deeply impacted by social stigma, isolation, and geographic location. Dialogue will expand beyond borders and help unite efforts amongst people facing similar challenges in various countries. An indirect benefit to this communications platform will be enhanced knowledge of mutual aid and safety practices.

Sex workers and survivors are the leaders of all we do. They have been at every level of this project and our organization in general. They have structural and decision-making power at every level. Projects such as SWORD led by us at New Moon Network are created for and by sex workers and survivors. We at New Moon Network are all directly impacted by SESTA and FOSTA and related attempts to eradicate sex workers from digital (and physical) spaces. This project is being built in collaboration with key community organizations and leaders representing sex workers experiencing extreme levels of marginalization. New Moon is fiscally sponsored by and working in close collaboration with Woodhull Freedom Foundation, which is the lead plaintiff in a constitutional challenge against FOSTA. Woodhull’s legal counsel is offering us insights on the risks a failure to the constitutional challenge represents, and we’re building SWORD in swift response to threats to our free speech and ability to organize. Collectively, we have decades of experience with coalition organizing, community building, public education and policy advocacy. We are building the tools we wish we had access to when we began advocating for change. Our desire to create SWORD is the result of witnessing the patterns, strengths, and weaknesses of the sex workers rights movement in the US from our vantage points as local and national leaders with overlapping work in movements for trans and queer liberation, disability, racial, gender, housing, and food justice, drug reform, privacy and free speech, and labor organizing. SWORD has been a collaborative process from the onset, with the preliminary concept being developed by members of New Moon Network and Reframe Health & Justice. We are currently engaged with representatives from Sex Work Project at Urban Justice Center, HIPS, and Decrim NY to collect assets for the database, and ensure accessibility needs are addressed. This project is being created for and by criminalized communities that are multi-racial, intergenerational, and representing numerous nationalities.

Through our partners at Reframe Health & Justice, our development team has access to a prototype website containing detailed information on sex worker rights campaigns and policy analysis. This website contains a "members only" portal where sensitive information could be housed. We are interfacing with this website to consider the accessibility, programmatic, and security/safety needs of the final website/app. We will likely incorporate this prototype into a fresh site or app that provides an on-ramp for totally new advocates, and which also lists information on how to find and engage with real time discussion groups and live action. We also currently have an extensive collection of resources, articles, videos, and podcasts organized into spreadsheets and ready for configuration into a database (the parameters of which we are in the development phase of researching). 

First of all, Solve looks like a wonderful way to connect with a network of creative changemakers who are working to effectively mitigate harms occurring in our world at multiple levels. Our team is extroverted and community minded, and we know we have a lot to learn and to teach within a network such as Solve. 

SWORD would greatly benefit from contributions from professionals possessing specific technical skills. Web developers who have experience with implementing user friendly databases are definitely people we want to work with. We have not searched extensively for this type of support, and felt that Solve would be a great place to network. We have grassroots support and guidance for ensuring that the website deploys translation widgets, but we are inexperienced with understanding what types of tools to select, and how to best implement them. We are also seeking guidance on how to balance security with accessibility, something that we as sex workers understand deeply due to criminalization and stigma, but not insofar as web and app development. Lastly, while we have fantastic legal counsel through our fiscal sponsor Woodhull Freedom Foundation, we would like additional legal opinions on how to best transit the information SWORD seeks to distribute, especially if the constitutional challenge to FOSTA fails. We are familiar with overseas laws relating to speech and the Internet, but we want to lay as strong a foundation as possible for SWORD with professional legal guidance. 

As far as funding, we are seeking support to implement the database and assist in the construction of the final website. We need financial support to ensure our tools are hosted overseas and backed up in the event of a system failure. As sex workers, we value peoples’ labor and what to pay people what they are worth for their professional services. We are getting discounted accessibility guidance through our allies at Woodhull Freedom Foundation. We would also like to provide stipends for participating organizations who will contribute to the asset population, user interface design, and testing of the platform. We are confident that the worth of this platform will be evident upon launch, and feel strongly that we will be able to raise sufficient funds to ensure maintenance of the platform through part time labor and seasonal contributions paid for by stipends. We know how to do a lot with a little. 

There is nothing like SWORD presently on the Internet. There are numerous small websites and chat groups created by sex workers and their allies that host information about specific bills and safety for organizers. We support decentralization as a way to keep our movement resilient and safe, but we also recognize it's shortcomings. Organizers crave a centralized location to connect and learn, especially on a platform that leads with disability and multi-lingual access. This platform will be totally unique, and it will need to be well informed by community need and the realities of the censorship we face at this time in the USA. 

SWORD is also a direct response to censorship laws such as FOSTA. SESTA and FOSTA fragmented and destabilized sex worker welfare and organizing ability. By deploying overseas hosting and exploring security options with cyber securities professionals, we will create a resilient, adaptable, deeply practical tools for the people most impacted by technological oppression. 

Our goal this year is to increase capacity for sex worker organizers and sex worker led coalitions seeking to advance bills promoting rights for people in the sex trade. We have a clear timeline for launching a beta version of the platform in the Fall to prepare organizers for the 2024 legislative session. We will use the platform to share strategy real time during the session, and also to host a thorough debrief in the early summer. We will take what we learned in the 2024 session to prepare for the presidential election, working collaboratively with our allies to understand the unique contributions sex worker organizer can make to promoting democracy. The direction of the platform will evolve in response to the political landscape after November 2024, but it will always be dedicated to housing and circulating institutional knowledge and updated information to aid sex worker led initiative that secure rights and safety for people in the sex trade. 

SWORD will be hosted by New Moon Network during it's initial launch, but our dream is for this community resource to become collectively led and owned. New Moon will always be prepared to house and run the platform if community is unable, but we are confident from prior experiences that this platform could become stewarded in collaboration with sister organizations dedicated to long term change. 

We will use SWORD to host bill trackers and logs of bills that have been introduced and passed which advance rights and welfare of people in the sex trade. We will catalogue media hits and representation of sex workers in the press. We will examine and unpack how sex workers are talked about in policy spaces and related coalitions, to understand how seriously the issue of sex work is being taken. We will count and reach out to visible sex worker led groups that are attempting to make change at the municipal, county, or state level. We have experience with tracking these same metrics since 2013, and are creating SWORD in response to a tipping points for sex workers rights that we feel that we are approaching. 

The rolls backs to reproductive rights, sexual orientation, and gender expression that we are seeing in the USA is a direct result of allowing open discrimination and violence against marginalize groups such as people who trade sex. The US has yet to implement UN Recommendation 86, which requires for sex workers to be protected from violence and discrimination. By uplifting facts such as UN 86 to our peers in organizing, and by sharing best practices on policy strategy and movement building, we can increase the amount of laws that pass benefiting the welfare of people in the sex trade. We have seen the movement for sex workers rights grow tenfold in the past several years, which is a direct response to increasingly intolerable conditions for sex workers in the US and beyond. We know that providing basic structure and capacity building support for this growing movement will pay dividends in strong leaders, clear strategies, and closer ties to intersectional movements. By creating these tools and strengthening our network, we will be able to better illustrate to funders the relevance of sex workers rights to defending bodily autonomy, free speech, privacy, and global mobility. We know that not taking steps to solidify our movement will result in ongoing marginalization and violence against sex workers, which will lead the door wide open for the creeping human rights violations we are witnessing at this present moment in the US. 

The core technology powering SWORD is the Internet. Sex workers are accustomed to adapting to an ever-evolving technological landscape, and we are working at the forefronts of encryption, cryptocurrency, and offshores hosting. By hosting websites and resources overseas, we are protecting ourselves from regressive censorship laws in the US. By learning more about independent servers, we are gaining sovereignty over our information and communications. By researching tools to increase accessibility for non-English speakers and people living with disabilities, we are creating tools broadly useful to a deeply diverse movement of oppressed people. By exploring the creation of apps, we are prioritizing access for people who engage with the Internet through mobile devices, and people lacking access to stable housing. 

SWORD is deeply collaborative and has been developed in direct consultation with people of color, survivors, non-English speakers, undocumented people, and people living with disabilities from the very start. The group forming around this project is multiracial and represents people working at various places within the sex trade economy. This project is intentionally crafted with diversity and inclusion in mind and is the result of our combined decades of organizing and coalition building experience. 

Our business model is to provide free access to information in a centralized location, accessible to diverse people in the sex trade who are engaged in policy advocacy and organizing. SWORD is presently funded by New Moon Network, a capacity buliding entity in the US dedicated to advancing the rights and welfare of people in the sex trade. New Moon Network will monitor engagement with SWORD to identify leaders and groups ready for deeper investment. New Moon presently offers microgrants of $1,000 to sex worker led initiatives and will prioritize microgrants for people seeking to implement what they learn on SWORD. Successful use of microgrants will yield data that New Moon can use to educate philanthropic networks, ideally securing deeper investment in grassroots solutions and efforts poised for impact. 

The people who engage SWORD are people with lived experience in the sex trade, who have varying levels of access to education and formalized community or institutional support. SWORD creates an institution for and by sex workers and survivors. SWORD recognizes and uplifts the abilities and expertise of people in the sex trade as leaders and changemakers. Even small investments such as microgrants can go a long way in aiding grassroots groups to perform actions, increase capacity, and sustain their energy and morale. 

New Moon Network is engaging the philanthropic sector, using it's pilot programs like SWORD to elevate the relevance of sex workers rights. Presently, sex worker led initiatives receive less than 1% of foundation funding globally, which New Moon asserts weakens our collective ability to push back against anti-rights agendas. New Moon is making a successful case for deeper investment in sex worker led movements, and has received grants from The Philanthropy Workshop and Pivotal Ventures "Women's Power & Influence" initiative, Mama Cash, Metanoia, and Vital Projects as well as numerous private donors. Now is the time to connect the dots between self determination, privacy, technology, mass migration and the plight of people in the sex trade. We are confident in our fundraising plan and fiscal health, and are getting tangible support for pilot programs such as SWORD. 

Our team is experienced with budget and program management. We review our overall and program budget weekly to determine what efforts or adjustments are needed to ensure success. We set aside a set portion of raised funds for reserves, which will enable us to complete a measured amount of programing and sunset responsibly if necessary. We are aware of global events (such as the prospect of war, covid, etc) that could disrupt our ability to fundraise, and we are planning accordingly. Our programs are lightweight and represent the creation of tools that will remain accessible and useful even if further work on a given project becomes untenable. The workers we contract with are on quarterly contracts which are revisited every three months to forecast feasibility and fiscal security. We are transparent with the people we work with and the organizations we provide grants to about our fiscal health. We collaborate with sister funder such as Third Wave Fund, Emergent Fund, and AIDS United to ensure vital projects receive uninterrupted funding, and this network yields opportunities to mitigate fiscal issues in the event of an unforeseen crisis. New Moon Network is run through a co-directorship, ensuring no disruption of leadership or institution knowledge in the event of sickness, death or other major life event. New Moon has been quietly operating since early 2022 with the abovementioned practices, which have proven to be sound and positioned New Moon to roll into 2024 with a solid, reliable foundation.